Malia Martin (5 page)

Her old maid smiled tentatively at her now, but Aleene only sighed and turned away. She squinted against the harsh sun and scanned the yard for her husband.

He rushed about, picking up children and setting them down. Aleene frowned at his antics, wondering what game he played. One of the smaller children pulled a cloth from over his head and jumped up and down. “Here I am!” the boy cried.

Cynewulf twirled around and thrust his arms into the air, acknowledging the found child. The others laughed uproariously. The child covered his head with the cloth, and Cynewulf again assumed a confused expression, running around the yard and mocking a thorough search for the lost boy.

Or, perhaps, he did not mock the search. Aleene smiled as she watched the young boy again reveal himself.

Her husband saw her then and a wide grin broke over his face.

Shocked surprise made her stare. She could not remember when anyone had smiled at her, and with such a total lack of guile. And with such beauty.

With a nervous gesture, she flipped her veil off her shoulder shifting her weight on her feet. “Cyne, we must break our fast.” The children moaned, and then stopped, as if suddenly remembering that she were some sort of ogre to be afraid of. Stiffening, Aleene turned away and moved back through the door of the hall. “Quickly, Cyne,” she said over her shoulder, “you must wash your hands.”

When she felt him behind her, she relaxed a bit. She had to yank on his hand to get him to sit, but once prodded, he did so without balking. Her confidence strengthened. This would not be so difficult.

Aleene showed her husband how to wash his hands with the rosewater brought to the table, and then their trencher was set before them and Cynewulf lived up to his name. He tore at the bread as a wolf would tear at a captured rabbit. Aleene winced and wrinkled her nose as her husband sloshed ale over her sleeve and got more food on the floor than in his mouth.

She sighed and put a hand on his arm. Again, the strength there surprised her, but she firmly got his attention, and pulled her hand away. He stopped mauling his food, his eyes staring blankly at her.

“He seems in need of table lessons. Perhaps we should find a nursemaid for him.”

Stifling the gasp of surprise that leaped from her throat, Aleene looked up to see Aethregard, her stepbrother, standing before her. His leanly muscled arms were crossed over his chest, and his small, beady gray eyes stared at her with complete hatred.

“You have returned,” she managed to say without showing any of the hidden panic that caused her fingers to tremble.

“Aye, the king is happy with our decision to move our marriage ceremony up. He, as well as I, did not understand my father’s wish to stay the marriage until your twenty-first birthday.” He strolled to the table and picked up a chunk of cheese. “He will be here to celebrate with us.”

Aleene stood, knowing that her height intimidated her smaller stepbrother. “It was not our decision, ’twas yours.” She took a deep breath. “Your father decided on our betrothal, and now you have decided we should marry before my birthday. Nothing has been mine, ever.”

“Now, now, Aleene, you mustn’t be petulant.” He took a bite of cheese and chewed slowly, then patted her hand.

She pulled quickly away. “Much has changed, though.” She forced herself to face her stepbrother. “I have finally made my own decision, brother dear.” Aleene gestured toward Cyne. “I have married.”

Aethregard did not even bother to look at Cyne. He quirked one sandy-colored brow. “Yes,” he hissed. “Cuthebert has informed me of this strange act of rebellion, Aleene.” His eyes seemed like the dull steel of a deadly sword. “And I’ve heard that you have already had the wedding night.”

“Yes.” She knew this information would soon reach the king, he would probably send for her or come to Seabreeze himself. Taking a deep breath, Aleene tilted up her chin, eyeing
her stepbrother down the length of her nose. “And I thank you not to be disrespectful to the new lord of Seabreeze Castle.”

“New lord indeed.” Aethregard spit on the ground at her feet. “You shall not get away with this, you cold-hearted bitch.”

When his gray eyes turned dark with anger, she saw only her stepfather staring at her. Fear writhed up Aleene’s spine, but she stood fast. “It is done, Aethregard.”

“It is not, Aleene. I have power here. Your people look to me for guidance, not you. I can force you away from your
husband,
” he nearly spat the word.

Aleene cleared her throat and held her stepbrother’s gaze. She wished she could make him leave Seabreeze. But now more than ever she needed to keep as much peace as possible with King Harold, and Aethregard and his men were staying at Seabreeze in service of the king. They were in the Fyrd, the king’s army of local men watching the beaches for sign of invasion from Normandy.

“You can do nothing of the sort. ’Tis my castle you stand in. By law, ’tis mine. You will never control it, or my people.”

He laughed derisively. “And you do?” He snorted like a pig. “It has been eight months since this holding reverted to you, Aleene, eight months since your eighteenth birthday. Have your people ever looked to you for guidance? They looked to my father, and when he was killed they looked to me.”

He spoke the truth and it frightened her. Still, she would not allow that fear to put her right back where she had been since the day her mother married Tosig, in the hands of one who would hurt her. “I will not let you win, Aethregard, you cannot.”

“No,
you
will not!” He threw down the rest of the cheese in his hand. It hit the table, bounced up, and glanced off Cyne’s forehead. “Your marriage to this lowlife will be annulled, and you
will
live up to your betrothal agreement.” With those venomous words, Aethregard turned away from her swiftly.

“Aethregard!”

His back stiff, the man stopped and turned around.

She was beyond caring about King Harold any longer. “You have given your two months in the Fyrd to the king. I wish you and your men to leave!”

A big chunk of hard cheese flew through the air and hit Aethregard squarely between his eyes. “Aaaagghh,” he cried, staggering backwards, his hand against his forehead.

Shocked, Aleene could only stare as Aethregard found his footing and glared with gleaming hatred just beyond her shoulder.

She turned. Her husband stood behind her, grinning.

“That lackwit!” Aethregard shouted. “He brained me with the cheese!” Her stepbrother surged forward, his hands outstretched towards Cyne.

“Hold!” Taking a step forward, Aleene put herself between her smiling husband and her menacing stepbrother. “He is lord of this castle, Aethregard. If he chooses to throw rotten tomatoes at you, it is his right.”

Aethregard stopped, his hands clenched in fists at his sides. Aleene could hear his breath heaving through his nostrils.

“Be gone, Aethregard, we will speak later.”

Anger burned behind his beady eyes as he stared first at her then her husband. “Yes, my dear,” he said in a low, shaking whisper, “we shall speak later.” Turning on his heel, Aethregard left the hall.

She watched his back as he departed, trying to school her features into a frown, then turned to her husband. “Husband mine, you must not throw food at people.”

He blinked at her.

She bit at the inside of her cheek and closed her eyes. A picture of the small red mark between Aethregard’s brows flashed through her mind. She bit harder. Opening her eyes, she addressed the culprit again. “That was not nice, Cyne.” Now she had to purse her lips tightly to subdue her mirth.

If possible, Cyne’s eyes became even more innocent. He blinked again and then slowly pointed to where Aethregard had once been and then at himself.

Aleene nodded. “Yes, I realize he did it to you first, but he is not always a nice man, so you must not follow his example.”

Cyne only stared.

Aleene sighed, her mirth fleeing in the face of the large responsibility she had taken upon herself by wedding this man. When she did produce a child from him, she would have to train them together.

“Sit, Cyne, and finish your food,” she said finally as she went to sit next to her husband. “I believe we were just about to have a lesson on proper eating habits when we were sadly interrupted.” She tried to smile, but knew the attempt was quite dismal.

Cyne sat slowly on the bench and looked down at his food, then back at her, his expression that of a newborn babe. Aleene purposefully tore off a piece of dry bread, keeping her eyes on Cyne as she chewed slowly and swallowed.

Mimicking her actions, Cyne took the bread and tore off a piece. He bit into it, baring strong white teeth, then chewed slowly just as she did. When he finished, his tongue flashed out and caught a bit of bread that clung to his full lips.

Aleene found herself staring and quickly looked up from her husband’s mouth, only to encounter his eyes. She stood quickly. “Cyne, come with me. I will show you my castle.”

Her husband blinked in confusion.

Aleene knew he was probably still hungry. Her own stomach growled with the need to be filled, but suddenly eating bread and cheese seemed such an intimate act, she could not continue. “Please, Cyne, come.”

He stood slowly, his eyes on his food, Aleene walked away and motioned for him to follow. With a sad look back at the table, he did.

“My father built Seabreeze Castle.” Aleene led her husband out of the hall and across the busy yard. In her mind she pictured her father as she remembered him, tall and lean, laughing, handsome. She swallowed hard and continued. “He was a wealthy Spaniard who came from Normandy with Edward, the Confessor. He married my mother, the daughter of a Thane, and built a castle here, behind the old Roman Pevensey Castle, to protect Harold’s lands from invaders.”

They reached the guard tower and Aleene led the way up the narrow stairs. Once at the top, Aleene stepped aside, sweeping her hand with a flourish toward the glittering expanse of sea. “It is wonderful, is it not?” She smiled, a gust of wind from the sea pulling at the veil that covered her hair and bringing a rush of pride.

“It is mine, a dower land that has gone through the female line of my family for centuries. Before my father built this castle in the new French style, it was a forgotten piece of land.” Turning, she glanced at her husband and realized that she could not allow herself
to look at him often, he was too uncommonly beautiful. Too uncommonly distracting.

He looked back at her, his forehead crinkled, his eyes confused. She sighed, and turned away again, staring out to sea. “I think it is perfection,” she said, knowing he would not understand. Finally, with one last look at the vast ocean, Aleene led her husband down the stairs to the cooking area, and then to the smithy.

Cyne trailed along behind her, stopping when she stopped, looking to where she pointed, his eyes dull, his mouth slack. She wondered if this was an exercise in futility. Would he remember anything she showed him? Did he understand anything she said? They passed the mews and Aleene hesitated. She hardly ever entered the small room that housed her father’s falcons. A servant still took care of them, but the thought of the great birds made Aleene think of her father, his laughing smile as he left, with a bird on his arm, to go hunting. Now that memory merely brought loneliness. Aleene simply gestured toward the mews. “My father’s falcons,” she mumbled, and continued on.

They came to the small garden behind the cooking area, and Aleene reached down, wrenching at a weed that had poked its way through a patch of turnips. The roots of the offending plant held tightly, though, and Aleene gritted her teeth, ready to take out her frustration on the small weed.

A hand, large, callused, and warm, stopped her. For a split second, Aleene felt her husband’s large body bent over hers, his breath against her neck, his fingers grazing hers. The strength of him combined with such gentleness seeped the breath from her lungs and caused her legs to tremble.

Her body’s reaction to Cyne’s closeness scared her, and she jerked her hand from beneath his, taking a hurried step forward before she turned to face him. He looked at her for a moment, something that hinted of intelligence glinting in his eyes, before he quickly averted his gaze and plucked the small yellow flower that adorned the weed. Straightening, Cyne held the flower up so that its nearly translucent petals caught the sunlight and seemed to glow.

Reluctantly, Aleene looked from the flower to her husband. She knew already that he would look beautiful in the sunlight, and part of her didn’t want to see it. Another part of her yearned for it. His hair, like the flower, glinted yellow in the brightness of day. His eyes mirrored the cloudless sky.

Aleene bit at her bottom lip and forced her gaze away. Why did his beauty touch such a deep longing inside of her? Why did it hurt?

“It is a weed. Useless. It kills the vegetables and herbs we are trying to grow.” Her voice sounded dead. Aleene sighed and turned away from Cyne.

Again his hand stayed her retreat, and the warmth went through her like the strongest wine she had ever drunk. This time it was a light tap on her shoulder, asking for her to turn. She stopped. He communicated, it seemed, through touch. She wondered if she would ever get used to it.

When she turned toward him, he smiled, and it made her hurt inside.

“What?” she asked sharply.

He took a step towards her, and she automatically backed away. His brow creased in perplexity as he advanced again towards her, holding the flower at arm’s length.

Rigid, Aleene did not move. She should not fear this man, he was her husband after all, and totally harmless. Using all of her willpower, she stayed rooted, her shoulders squared, her eyes warily assessing.

He smiled again, and she knew that her inner arguments would not save her. She feared him because of his innocence. She could handle ugliness, that she knew well; she could not deal with this clear, innocent beauty before her, it contrasted with her own darkness too strongly.

Unwilling to show her fear, though, she waited for whatever her husband had in mind. He was close enough now that she could smell the heat of the sun in his leather tunic.